I crept round the other side to make a run at em, then had a thought. Perhaps it’d look more real if I were holding summat. She had to believe I were saving her from him, else it wouldn’t help us with Nick Wossname. I got me monkey wrench ot and ran into the clearing. Felt good in my hand, it did.
Just like it always done.
‘Dave?’ I says a few moments later, after the darkness had cleared from in front of me eyeballs. I prodded him with me boot. Then I recalled how he were meant to be a villain and me come to save Mona, so I says, more gruffer: ‘Hoy, get up, you cunt.’ I kicked him hard this time.
But it made no odds—he weren’t budging. I looked at Mona, who were still staring goggle-eyed but making no noise now. Then I looked at the monkey wrench in my hand. It’d all been a bit of a blur, to be honest. I sometimes gets like that in the heat of battle, even when it’s a bit parky and the other feller ain’t fighting. I suppose you could say I’d applied the wrench a bit harder than I’d meant to. You could say I never needed to use it at all. Any cunt could look at Dave and meself and see there weren’t no match between us. But like I says just now, I’d got the plan sorted but not the details.
I grabbed one of Dave’s arms and pulled him over. Mona made a little squeal under her gag as the sun hit t’other side of Dave’s face. I tutted and shook my head. This one here needed more than a plaster and a couple of pints. I knelt down and put me ear next to his face to check his breathing. After a bit I stood up and looked at him again.
Dead, weren’t he?
I looked at me wrench, wondering how that had happened. But I’d been in this place before, and there’s only so much wondering you can do before moss starts growing on your boots.
‘Oh well,’ I says, shrugging. ‘Soz about that, mate.’ Cos he were all right, were Dave. Bit of a twat and blind as a lump of tar, but he were harmless by and large and hadn’t ever gave us grief on the door at Hoppers, which set him apart from most fellers in Mangel. But you reaps what you sows, so my old feller used to say, which meant Dave must have been a bit of a cunt, on the quiet like. And there’s no good crying over spilt blood, as my old man also used to say, after he’d gave us a bust lip.
I looked at Mona and sent her one of my professional grins, the sort like I’ve perfected over my many years spent dooring at Hoppers. If there’s one thing I knows, it’s how to put a bird at ease. And if there’s one bird who needed it, this one here were her.
But she just went on staring at us.
‘Well,’ I says, going over to her. ‘Lucky for you I were passin’, eh? Else who knows what this here feller’d of done. Eh?’
Aye, she were fucking hard work all right. Saved her life I had, and all I got back were that nasty look. All right, she were gagged and that, but a bird can use her eyes when she wants to, and to be honest I reckoned I were due summat for me troubles. I were starting to wonder if this here Mona weren’t one o’ them lesbians. I mean, she just weren’t interested. I know she were going out with Nick Wossname and all, but he did have long hair, didn’t he?
Anyhow, it were her I’d come for so I had to take her as I found her, gratitude or no. I knelt down to untie her. My leg were up against her side and I felt her go stiff as a gatepost. When I reached behind her head to get her gag off there were no give at all in her neck. ‘S’all right, love,’ I says, winking‘Have no fear. Blakey’s here.’ I pulled the gag off.
She screamed.
‘All right,’ I says, putting my hand over her gob. ‘No need for that, right? When I takes my hand away just now I wants no more. Right?’ I took my hand away.
She screamed again.
Like a cage full of hungry babies.
I put the gag back on. I couldn’t be doing with that, not with Dave lying there dead. What if someone were passing by? ‘No need for that,’ I says to her. ‘It ain’t friendly. Saved you, I done. Look at him yonder with his face all fucked. Done that for you, I done. But woss I get in return? Bawlin’.’
I walked up and down the clearing a few times, trying to calm meself. No good getting het up, were there? I ought to have known summat like this would happen. After a bit I got me breathing under control and turned to her with a newfound resolve. ‘You wait here,’ I says.
Then I went to sort Dave out.
I found his motor about thirty yard deeper into the wood in a dark, hawthorn-hid spot. On a brighter day you might have clocked the sun glinting off the chrome from the road, but on this gloomy late afternoon here I could stand across the bush from her and not know she were there. It were only us knowing she must be nearby that gave her away. That and the tyre tracks.
She weren’t half a nice motor, mind. I’d always had a soft spot for them Rovers, and his were the only decent one in Mangel them days. To be fair, she could have done with a sand down and respray, and even in the poor light I could see how much work the interior required. But your Rover P6 is a plush motor whatever nick she’s in, and sends shivers up and down the hardest man’s spine when he sees her cruise by. Which were why Dave had come to be driving her, like as not. Everyone likes a bit of attention, and for Dave this were the only way. I tried her doors.
Fucking locked, weren’t they?
I went back to Dave, starting to chew me lip just a mite. With them keys I could make it look like an accident. Idea had come to us while I’d been looking for his motor, and I reckoned it were one of the best ones I’d ever had. But without the keys I were fucked. I breathed easier when I found em in his donkey jacket. I got him by the ankles and started tugging for a yard or two, then thought about all that mud and grass getting on his back and set him across me shoulder instead. He were a bit of a lump, but I’d shifted heavier loads than him in me time. When I got him to his motor I set him shotgun and got in the driver side.
I started her up with nary a glance at him. I’d never been that keen on corpses at the best of times, and this weren’t that by a long stretch, me being out of work and stuck in Hurk Wood and all. The gentle rumble of your Rover’s 3.5-litre engine went some way to soothing my frazzled nerve endings, mind, and I just sat like that for a bit, letting the vibrations massage us. After a length of time I noticed it were getting dark, so I took the stopper off and taxied her across the grass to the Barkettle Road.
I pointed her north and let the Rover’s V6 ticker do the rest, which happened to be not far shy of nine seconds upto your sixty. I knew what top end she were capable of and all. We’d swiped one off Culver’s Scrap Yard as younguns, and I swear she clocked a ton thirty down the East Bloater Road before blowing a gasket. Had to walk home in the pissing rain, we did, but it were worth it to have come so close to heaven. Anyhow, last thing I wanted right now were a copper taking a professional interest, so I kept her under eighty all the way to Rudge Valley.
Most Mangel folk ain’t ever even seen Rudge Valley. No reason to go up that way, you see. Not unless you’re sightseeing. But I’d always made it my business to know about the outlying areas. Not like I were planning on escaping, mind. Mangel folk is all leaves on the same tree, so they says, and if a leaf drops off, he withers and dies. We can’t get by without the tree and it can’t live without us, they says and all. All right? Got that, have you? Well, I had it and all. I’d had it since day fucking one, and if there’s one thing I knew, besides where to find my arse, it’s that Mangel folk stays Mangel folk come what might. So no, I hadn’t come out to Rudge Valley looking to slip away. I hadn’t stood at the top of the slope and dreamed of what adventures lay beyond. I hadn’t spent hours on end pacing by the side of the road, wondering what might happen if I legged it out of the Mangel area and headed for the big city.
Just liked a bit of sightseeing is all.
I pulled up on the rim of the valley and got out. It were a nice little elbow bend in the Barkettle Road, a bank of firs to the inside and a sheer drop down the valley on the outside. I went to the edge and looked. A long stretch of grass so steep not even a goat would use it led you down a quarter mile or so t
o the River Clunge, which were tree-lined along that stretch and not visible to the naked eye. Dangerous bit of road it were. But like I says, no fucker ever came out this way so it never made no odds. I went back to the Rover.
I hauled Dave out of the shotgun spot and set him in front of the wheel. Couldn’t get his paws to stick to it but that were all right. I put her in fifth and turned the key, letting her stall.
‘Well,’ I says, squatting beside the open door, ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this. I mean, I’d like to of got to know you a bit more. And perhaps we would of done that, circumstances bein’ different. We could of had fun all right, oh aye…’
I closed me eyes and pictured the two of us having fun together.
‘Fun? More than fun it would of been. You knows it an’ I knows it an’ all. We could of been…special.’
I had to stop there cos it were all getting a bit much. I wiped me eyes and pulled meself together.
‘Right,’ I says. ‘None o’ that, eh? Feller’s gotta do what he’s gotta.’ I stroked the steering wheel a few times to show her I meant every word I’d said, then I let the hand brake off and shut the door.
‘Oh, and see you, Dave,’ I says, remembering he were there and all.
Then I went round back and shouldered man and motor into Rudge Valley.
Course, I were stuck yomping again now. Two mile it were back to that phone box, and by the time I got there it ere dark. The Hillman Imp were hardly a pretty sight but just the one I’d been wanting at that particular time. I’d not been able to lock the doors, see, so there were no banking on her still being there. I should have put her behind them trees like Dave had done with his, I suppose, but to be honest I couldn’t recall hearing one motor come past all the while I’d been here, so I were all right.
You could hardly see that clump of larches. The wood proper were behind em, and the last drops of light washing over the sky behind that, so all I seen were a big black blob looming in front of us. Still, when you started walking over there the trees slowly came clear, and before you know it you’re stood next to what you could have swore were that very same clump of larches.
Only Mona weren’t there, were she?
I had a good poke about to be sure she weren’t hiding near-abouts. She’d fucked off all right. Even found the cabling she’d been trussed up in and the damp old sock Dave had gagged her with. Silly tart. Told her I’d come to save her, didn’t I? Why couldn’t she just sit tight and wait for us? Then I could have took her back to Nick Wossname and got started as a minder. Fucking birds for you, that is. Never does what you wants em to.
I shrugged and went back to the Imp. Fuck her. If she’d gone into the woods she were fucked anyhow. And if she’d took the road townward I’d never get her neither. Jump into the trees she would at the first sound of a motor coming behind her. She’d limp back to Nick Wossname like as not, which wouldn’t be so bad when you stopped and thought about it for a bit. Saved her, I had. She’d sat there and watched us knock her kidnapper dead. All right, she’d found it all a bit scary and scarpered. Couldn’t blame her for that, though. She were only a bird, and it can’t be pleasant watching death come to a feller in front of your eyes. But she still knew I’d saved her. And she could tell that to her feller Nick Wossname, who’d be even more keener to get us minding for him.
I were thinking that as I walked across the clearing, watching a motor start up and pull a U-ey over there on the road. By the time I’d worked out it were my Hillman Imp she were forty yard off Mangelward.
Fucking birds for you, that is.
No gratitude.
12
READERS RESPOND
Dear Mangel Informer,
What was your man Steve Dowie on about the other day in his article about Hoppers and sweets and crime and God knows what else? We don’t have them “drugs” in Mangel. Ask anyone. We like a drop or two and a bit of tobacco here and there, but drugs are for thickheads, being as when you takes them you go funny for a bit and then die. Everyone knows that. That’s why we don’t have them in Mangel.
Mrs. Vera Trandle
Mangel
Dear mate,
I just want to take umbrage here about what you said in your paper about Hoppers. A “sticky, greasy house of cards” you called it. Well I did some repair work on the building a few year back after that fire, and I can tell you straight that it’s built of brick and mortar like any other building. I tried making a shed out of cardboard once and they just don’t work, sticky or no. Soon as the rain comes you’re swimming. I just wanted to set that straight.
Bob Gretchum
Gretchum & Sons Building and Clearance
Mangel
All right,
I went to school with your Steve Dowie and he never had no mates. He was always the one up front sticking his hand up and licking teacher’s **** and that. My mate John knocked into him once and the little ****** only went and told on him to the headmaster. Always looking at books and that he was, reckoning himself more cleverer than the rest of us. Books is for folks who ain’t got no mates and can’t stick up for emselves.
Michael Tinch
Mangel
Dear Editor
Do you realise your feller Steve Dowie can’t even spell properly? “Moniker,” he wrote. Have you not got dictionaries there?
Monica Fleigh
Mangel
‘Where’s you fuckin’ bin, you fucker?’
Jack had been drinking. He must have been drinking cos he never said nothing at all when he hadn’t been, like I already told you. I weren’t sure if I were happy about that, about him being pissed. He were too quiet by half when he weren’t pissed but at least he couldn’t pollute folks’ ears that way. I mean, just you have a listen to him:
‘Hoy you, you cunt. I’m fuckin’ talkin’ to you. Where’s you fuckin’ bin?’
Come on, that ain’t no way to talk, is it? But like I says previous, you had to go easy on the poor old cunt. You can’t blame a feller for using choice words after spending all that time in Mangel Jail. No, Jack hadn’t always been so foul of tongue. Always been a lairy bastard but he used to have class with it. He’d deck a feller then turn and check his hair in the mirror. Not that he needed to. Used to sport one o’ them barnets you can’t ruffle with a crowbar, he did. Fuck knew what he put in it to get it that way, but the birds never seemed to mind. Always one hung off his arm, there were, when he weren’t scrapping. And not your usual mingers neither. I’m talking the top birds—big tits, nice round arses, long yellow hair, all right faces…the fucking works, mate. You wants a bird like that, you got to show a bit o’ class. And Jack had it. Bit like meself in that respect.
‘All right, Jack,’ I says. ‘Calm it, right?’
But there were no comparing us now. Jail had been rough on him all right. You couldn’t hardly see his face for scar tissue. And his eyeballs was so shot you couldn’t tell which way he were looking. Rumour were he hadn’t closed his eyes once in all his time inside, which is how he’d kept himself ticking. I wanted to ask him what the fuck happened to him in there, but looking at him here, down that alley next to Burt’s Caff, I weren’t sure he were in the mood. And I weren’t sure I wanted to know, neither.
‘Fuckin’ half past fuckin’ nine, Nathan said,’ he says, lighting a match on his shaved head and sparking up. ‘Not ten o’ fuckin’ bastard clock.’
I weren’t sure I wanted to hear it anyhow, even if he’d wanted to tell it. Some things it don’t do to yak about, and the inner workings of Mangel Jail is one of em. Besides, you could tell he hadn’t ever really got out of there. We was stood down the alley having a chat, but his eyes was flicking all over the shop.
‘All right, all right,’ I says. ‘Heared you the first time, didn’t I?’
‘Stood here like a fuckin’ cunt, I were.’ He kept looking behind him, like someone were trying to get at him through the brick wall. ‘Smoked nearly all me fuckin’ smokes an’ all. Know how many I smoked? Fuckin’ sev
en. Seven fuckin’ smokes. Thass seven smokes you owes us, you fuckin’—’
‘I says all right, didn’t I?’ I says, wafting his breath away from me face.
I were gonna say more but you had to be careful with Jack. Like I says, he weren’t in the best of shape. Especially the way he’d been pickling himself nonstop since getting out. But he had homemade tats up and down his arms that’d have you crossing the street. And you don’t spend all that time surviving in Mangel Jail without picking up a move or two, does you? No, you don’t.
‘Look,’ I says, getting a bit narked with him now. ‘What we had planned, right? Forget the lot of it. It’s off.’
Jack grumbled summat else and lit another up without offering us one. What a cunt, eh. Could have bunged us one, couldn’t he? Yomped all the bastard way from Hurk Wood North, I had, and a little smoke would have gone a long way to getting us feeling rosy again. Then again, he smoked Lamberts, which I fucking hated. Smoking a Lambert is like smoking an old dogshite rolled up in chip paper.
‘Did you hear us?’ I says. Cos to be honest he didn’t look like he had. He were muttering under his minging breath, blowing smoke and squeezing them big old fists tight.
Looking at him here, stood in the shadows like we was, I found it hard to believe I’d been on the point of entrusting my future unto Jack. He were a fucking spanner. ‘Wait till you sees Blake comin’,’ Nathan had said to him back there in the Pry. ‘Then breathe hard in the incumbent doorman’s face, thereby decapacitatin’ him for just long enough so’s Blake here can step up and floor him.’ That werthe plan to get us back on the door. All right, so it looked a bit shite when you peered too close, but it had sounded all right at the time. All Nathan’s words sounded right at the time when he said em.
Booze and Burn Page 14